Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest men in American history, described his vision of the United States of America as a land of agricultural peoples. However, now, more than two centuries later, the United States faces a very different reality, dominated by the growth of urban metropolises, by industry, by stoic Wall Street bankers. Despite this, Ted Kooser's poetry immortalizes the rapidly disappearing way of life of rustic America in the vast expanses of the Great Plains. Kooser was born in a small town in Iowa in April 1939 and graduated from Iowa State University. After working for more than three decades at Lincoln Benefit Life, an insurance company, he made history by becoming the first poet from the Great Plains to be named Poet Laureate of the United States at the Library of Congress. The following year he received the Pulitzer Prize for Delights and Shadows, one of his 14 published poetry collections. Kooser's poetry often deals with nature and scenes unique but typical of the American plains, particularly Nebraska, where he lives with his wife as a professor at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Furthermore, he uses simple vernacular to make his poetry more comprehensible to the everyday reader and consciously avoids esoteric allusions and calls himself an imagist. As a result of his background and his commitment to making poetry more widely understood, Kooser predominantly uses simple figurative language and discusses the need to preserve culture, particularly that of the Great Plains where he grew up. Kooser's use of simple figurative language is a striking feature of most of his poetry. He often uses figurative language to create images, which are central to his poetry. In “The blind always come as such a surprise…… to the center of the paper…… of the small printers. New York: Pushcart, 2013. Print.Kennedy, XJ and Dana Gioia. An introduction to poetry. 10th ed. New York: Longman, 2002. Print. Leithauser, Brad. "'Flying at Night': Into the Heart of the Heart of the Country." The New York Times. The New York Times, August 7, 2005. Web. May 24, 2014. .Lund, Elisabetta. "Love poems on a postcard." Csmonitor.com. The Christian Science Monitor, February 12, 2008. Web. May 23, 2014. .Mason, David. "Meet Ted Kooser." Thedarkhorsemagazine.com. Dark Horse Magazine, Summer 2005. Web. May 25, 2014. "Ted Kooser." Poetryfoundation.org. Foundation for Poetry, 2010. Web. 25 May 2014. .